


touch

by prettyboyrollins



Series: Reunion [3]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 19:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyboyrollins/pseuds/prettyboyrollins
Summary: Gentle hands and quiet moments are best enjoyed after going through hell. [Seth worries over Dean after a brutal match.]





	touch

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be posted in october but it didn't have an ending until today. i promise i'm gonna get better at posting regularly, but i hope posting three times in one day (that's right, i have another one coming) makes up for the delay.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, are you okay?”

Dean hissed through his teeth, clutching his title to his ribs as he limped backstage, Seth at his side. “’M fine enough to walk, princess, _relax.”_

Seth had taken his fair share of shit in the match, too – a couple killer kicks to the face, for instance – but still, as always, he was fretting over Dean instead of worrying about himself; honestly, that was a nice change from Seth’s old selfishness and the way that he used to insist that he _got hurt too, guys, look at this._ But Dean wished he’d have a little consideration for himself – he could be concussed or something.

The look on Seth’s face told Dean that Seth wasn’t satisfied with his answer. “You think those losers are enough to take me out? I’ve taken a dozen suplexes from Lesnar and walked away, Rollins. Have a li’l faith in me, man.”

Seth hefted his title back onto his shoulder and put his other hand on the small of Dean’s back, guiding him into their shared locker room and closing the door; once the rest of the world was locked out, Seth’s hand was in his and the title ended up on one of the benches.

It had become kind of routine for this to happen after a match filled with bad bumps – getting swung into the steel steps by Cesaro definitely counted as a bad fuckin’ bump, even though Dean would swear he’d taken worse – for Seth to fuss over Dean worriedly, title slung over his shoulder. He always managed to find a place for them to hide away so they wouldn’t be accosted by cameras, and then all pretenses were stripped away: this thing between them was still so new and fragile, but wonderful all the same. Behind closed doors, they reveled in being able to touch and kiss and celebrate, but tonight there was only exhaustion and pain and Seth’s hands gently feeling around Dean’s body, checking for injury.

“’M fine,” he insisted again, shrugging away from Seth’s hands, and Seth gave him a look. “I am!”

“Dean.” It was one word, but it carried a lot of weight, and that made Dean sigh and stop. “Thank you, _Jesus,_ just lemme make sure you’re okay.”

“You don’t gotta do this after every match, man. You know what I went through in CZW, right?”

Seth tried, and failed, to hide his little wince. Was he imagining the barbed wire? The fluorescent lightbulbs smashed over his head? Dean made a mental note to ask him later. “Forgive me if I don’t wanna see you go through that again.”

That shut Dean up quick, and he wanted to kiss the resulting (dumb) smirk off of Seth’s face; he leaned in to do just that, but Seth ducked out of the way. “I’m tryin’ to make sure you’re okay, babe, let me do that at least.”

Even after everything, Seth was still able to knock Dean for a loop with just a few words. Adjusting to people actually giving a shit about him and showing it was a lot harder than he’d anticipated it would be at the start.

Seth pushed up Dean’s shirt with gentle fingers, and Dean allowed himself to really feel the exhaustion he’d been pretending wasn’t there.

“Don’t think I’m easy,” Dean quipped, biting his lip as Seth traced one of the welts on his back with barely-there presses of his fingertips. “I’m only lettin’ you undress me ‘cause I’m hurt.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Seth said, and the audible roll of his eyes was betrayed by just how fond he sounded. “At least you admitted you were hurt.”

“I got thrown into stairs, Seth, that hurts. Physics don’t stop existin’ just ‘cause we got a script to work off of.”

Seth didn’t dignify that with a response, and Dean didn’t push – he could feel a hand rub over his shoulders, and it felt so nice after everything else that he let himself get distracted.

“You look like you went through hell, but… you don’t need immediate medical attention.”

“Satisfied?”

“Almost.”

Dean’s brow furrowed, but it wasn’t long before Seth was spinning him around to kiss him, and Dean melted into that embarrassingly quickly.

It wasn’t like any of their other celebratory kisses, which were fiery and passionate and devolved quickly – this one was soft and chaste and almost grateful, and neither of them really wanted to break it.

“We’re still champs,” Dean whispered against Seth’s lips, with a smile – until Seth pulled away. _What the fuck._

“Fuck that,” Seth said seriously. “You’re okay, and you and I are together. That’s all that matters right now. Those titles? Nice, but just a bonus.”

That shocked Dean to his core, and he knew it showed on his face. Seth shook his head. “I’m serious. We can lose the titles, but Dean, I can’t lose you.”

“Y’know, you keep sayin’ this shit, I’m gonna get real used to it.” He wasn’t able to mask the genuine fear in his voice; instead of taking offense to it, like he half-expected him to, Seth just leaned in to kiss him quickly.

“Good.”

He let all the questions he wanted to ask die in his throat as he swallowed hard. The first part of accepting all of this was allowing himself to _believe_ Seth when he said these kinds of things. Seth was in this for the long haul, if he was going to believe him and trust him – and that was what this was all about, right? Trust?

He knew he was extremely lucky that Seth understood that things like trust and relationships didn’t come easy to him – but now it was time for him to grow up and take that first baby step towards allowing himself to trust him completely and fully, like he had all those years ago.

Instead of challenging what Seth said, instead of insisting he didn’t really mean all the nice things he told Dean, he just nodded. “Thank you, Seth.”

“Of course.” Seth kissed him quickly. “I love you.”

They both froze, eyes wide, and Dean’s mouth fell open. Sure, they’d known each other for years, and this thing between them had been intense from the very beginning, but… Dean never anticipated hearing Seth say those words in this kind of context.

Seth regained his ability to speak faster than Dean. “I mean it. I… I didn’t wanna say it like this. I didn’t plan on it. But I’m not takin’ it back. You don’t gotta say it to me – don’t feel like you have to, ‘cause you don’t. I want you to say it if you feel it. But I mean, you may as well know. I love you, man. And not in the way I love Roman. It’s… it’s real love. Not that I don’t really love Rome, but you… you get me.”

Dean felt like he’d been knocked on his ass, and he kept just staring at Seth, trying to find his words. After a few tense and quiet minutes, he licked his lips. “I… yeah, okay. Thanks. Just, uh… say it one more time.”

Seth looked relieved that he wasn’t outright rejecting him; that was the most unlikely scenario, but it was probably the one Seth imagined first, knowing him. “I love you,” he said, cupping Dean’s cheek with his hand.

He leaned into it, almost like a cat. “I know,” Dean said with a smile, even though that was an outright lie. The look on Seth’s face told him that _he_ knew he was lying, but Seth kissed him anyway. He knew what Dean was saying in those two words, and he knew that Dean would say the real thing when he was ready.

“Alright, Han. Let’s hit the road. I want a burger before we get to the hotel – and I’ll grab extra fries for us to split.”

… Well, just because he wasn’t ready to _say_ it didn’t mean he couldn’t _think_ it. _God, I fucking love you._

Yeah. For now, that was good enough.


End file.
